girl, traumatized
by et voila 1312
Summary: Grace van Pelt never fully dealt with the events of S3, leading up to and including shooting her fiance. She was still in shock and denial, and thought it was pointless. Now she does talk about it, honestly, painfully, re-opening old wounds, leaving nothing sacred, and giving herself no excuses. Minor spoilers for 1x16, S3, beg S4. Dark, angsty, long one-shot. I own nothing.


**summary**-_Grace, in therapy, never gets the phone call from Haffner, and has to talk about the events surrounding Craig O'Laughlin, which dredges up other painful memories. _

**A/N**-_don't ask why I seem obsessed with van Pelt; I'm not, I write what comes to me!_

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The Mentalist

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girl, traumatized

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The therapist smiled at her, no doubt trying to be reassuring, but it just looked condescending.

"So where would you like to start?"

Grace stared in disbelief, then snorted and rolled her eyes at the asinine question.

"Seriously?" But instead of the scolding look she was expecting, the therapist simply looked even more compassionate, tempting Grace to at least try.

"Sorry." She smiled weakly, sheepishly.

"Why don't we start with the most recent incident?" It was the therapist's choice of words that made Grace smile fully, a desperate, almost hysterical smile.

"'Incident'? Yeah, I guess that's one word for it: 'incident'. Event, occurrence, disaster, train wreck; they're all good." She sighed deeply. Looked down at her hands. This was not how she'd wanted this to go.

At Lisbon's urging, she'd made the appointment, and twice had almost canceled. She'd just wanted to forget all of it; go home, sleep, then go to work the next day, and carry on like it had all been nothing but a nightmare. Briefly terrifying, then forgotten with the light of day.

Hence the clipped sum-up to the guys: _"I'm fine, and I don't wanna talk about it."_

She'd continued shoving her stuff into the garbage bag, her jaw already clenched to breaking, when Cho, Mr. To-the-Point, replied, in his usual monotone.

"_Two days ago you shot and killed your fiancé; you can't be fine."_ Jesus, sometimes the man was worse than Jane!

Huh. There was a living, breathing, perfect case study in tactlessness.

Patrick Jane. Red John. Red John's mole. The FBI. Special Agent O'Laughlin. _Craig_.

Funny how it had all come full circle, how she had become unwittingly, inexorably part of that whole hideous mix.

She wasn't sure if Jane should hate _her_, for leading the fox right into the henhouse, or she should hate _him_, for coming to work at CBI in the first place, bringing his tragedy into their midst.

"Sorry," she apologized again. Took a deep breath. "This is just really, _really_ hard."

"Take your time." The encouragement was given softly, but all traces of condescension or patronizing Grace had heard earlier, real or imagined, were gone.

"I was engaged to this guy, Craig. He seemed like a good person. We were happy..." Her resolve, strong only a second ago, wavered.

Fight or flight kicked in. It would be so easy, she'd never have to think or speak about him again.

Then oddly enough, she thought of Jane, only this time more charitably; he could so easily have given up after what happened. Either killed himself soon after, or lost himself in drugs and alcohol or reckless, anonymous sex.

Instead, he had gone to therapy, albeit in the locked room of a mental institution, then pulled it together, and plowed on, and set about on a single-minded focus.

Yes, of revenge. But the point was, he had chosen to fight.

"...then I found out that he was an assassin for a serial killer named Red John, and he tried to kill me, and my boss, and a bunch of other people, so I had to shoot him."

"Tell me: how does it feel, telling that? Recounting it?"

Hmph. Typical shrink question. Grace raised her downcast eyes to glare at the therapist.

"How do you _think_ it feels? Not good. Pretty bad."

"Can you elaborate?"

Her jaw tightened, she felt her hackles rising at every prodding question. Fight warred with flight. It was all she could do not to bolt for the door and not look back, mandatory psych eval or not.

"Can I ask, how long does this therapy usually last?"

"It depends; there's no set calendar." She watched as the therapist practically pulled a Jane; scrutinizing her, her body language, easily reading her desire to leave. Dammit, she got enough of that at the office.

"I'm sensing hesitation on your part."

Is that a question? At that moment, Grace figured she might as well go for broke, say what she really thought of the whole idea.

"I guess, I just don't believe that this will really work; talking about it." Her next words were mostly to herself. "What's the point?" she whispered brokenly.

"Grace, somebody you trusted and loved _betrayed_ you. Betrayed you so badly you had to take his _life_. That needs to be talked about."

Grace gritted her teeth. Wow. She'd never actually said the words out loud before. She'd avoided it like a pro; it was the capper that would've made it all real.

_Trusted_. _Loved_. _**Betrayed**_.

And now, there it was. Spoken. Given life. Real. Real and as concrete and ugly as Red John's precious grotesque smileys.

Her lips curled in a last-ditch effort to downplay the whole thing, and she chuckled, a hollow, humorless sound.

"It could've been worse; I could've married him." She sighed, cleared her throat.

"You want me to elaborate on 'pretty bad'. Okay. 'Pretty bad', like I have 'SUCKER' stamped on my forehead, like I'm wearing a sign that says 'Gullible' on one side and 'World's Biggest Schmuck' on the other. 'Pretty bad' because suddenly I'm questioning every instinct I ever had, wondering if I was _ever_ cut out to be a cop. If I _still_ am."

Grace paused, and sniffled a little, about to reveal the core of her long-suppressed insecurities.

"Maybe I'm not, because apparently I never recognize evil, even when it's looking me right in the eye and smiling lovingly." At that, Grace broken down and began sobbing.

The therapist said nothing, no pretty petting words of comfort, no motherly _there_-_there's_, no reprimands to Grace to stop it and pull herself together.

She simply waited, letting Grace release the emotions she'd obviously been holding in for far too long.

After a moment, having had that little release, her sobs quieted to heavy sniffles. She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. Looking up, she noticed the box of tissues now sitting next to her on the couch. They hadn't been there before, had they?

She quickly plucked two from the box and dried her eyes.

"Why do you suddenly think you're not a good cop? You can't rethink your entire career choice because one bad man deceived you, no matter how tragically it ended."

Again, Grace chuckled without humor.

"Y'know, ordinarily I would agree with you, but..." She really didn't want to dredge up _that_ again. It was so long ago. No one had even mentioned it since; not even Jane. What did it matter now?

But she did.

"Go on." Again that firm, but gentle prod.

"Craig wasn't the first time someone used me like that: a few years ago, I met a man named Dan Hollenbeck. Well, that's what he called himself. We met outside the CBI at the coffee cart. He flirted with me, I flirted back, and we got to talking, and pretty soon we were meeting for coffee every day. But as I later found out, he wasn't interested in me at all; just my passkey to the statehouse."

She looked at the therapist, to gauge her reaction so far. The woman simply nodded.

"He needed access to the statehouse to get to Jane; he's the one Dan was after." At the therapist's perplexed look, Grace explained.

"I work with this man, Patrick Jane, who used to make a living as a fake psychic; he's really, _really_ observant, so it was easy for him. One of his clients suspected her husband of cheating, which Jane basically confirmed. The wife divorced her husband and took their son; the husband lost his job, ended up homeless. Dan blamed Jane for ruining his life; said because of him his mom fell into depression and he was bullied really badly in school."

Grace could still remember that moment, when her new boyfriend turned into Mr. Hyde and pulled the gun on her and Jane, cuffing them together, then started ranting about the former psychic's so-called 'sins' against the Krager family, namely his greed and thoughtlessness of his actions' consequences.

"You wouldn't believe the anger, the venom, in his voice when he laid into Jane: '_All_ _because_ _you_ _**had**_ _to_ _tell_ _my_ _mom_ _the_ _truth_, _you_ _had_ _to_ _be_ _the_ _**man**_ _**who**_ _**knew**_.'"

Grace shook her head. "Like he was still that kid from a broken home, needing someone to blame." She picked at the damp tissue in her hand.

"By that point any attraction I'd felt was gone, yet I might've had some compassion left if he hadn't made a snarky dig at my hometown, then forced me and Jane out to the parking lot, probably to kill us. Jane kicked him, and we managed to get to my car, but by then Dan was just shooting blindly. By the time he caught up to us he was aiming to kill us both. Luckily Lisbon took him out."

That story finished, Grace fell silent a moment, staring out the window behind her. The only sounds the soft ticking of a clock and the therapist's pen scratching on her legal pad.

Somewhere out in the office, a cell phone rang.

"Not long after that, few weeks maybe, I got involved with another man. Wayne." She smiled briefly; a small, sad smile. "He was completely different; kind, thoughtful, strong. And I knew he loved me. I loved him too. Unfortunately we worked together and that was against the rules, so we had to keep it a secret."

She chuckled at the irony. How many times had Jane given them _the eye, _or made some smug, knowing comment?

"Of course, _Jane_ knew. Then Lisbon, but she kept quiet about it. I think she was rooting for us, but as our boss felt torn. Then we got a new unit chief who found us out her first day. Next day, called us into her office, and gave us the CBI line: 'break up or we'll split you up'."

The red-head's eyes welled up again, her face crumpled.

"So I broke it off!" she sobbed. She grabbed a handful more tissues and pressed them to her face and cried, again, just like she did after choosing her job over Rigsby.

Somehow it hurt even more now, knowing what came after.

She'd put on a good show, acted aloof and unaffected when Rigsby had gotten over their break-up seemingly _overnight_. But the truth was, it _had_ hurt, badly, and even now she still felt horrible about ripping his heart out like that.

Again, after a few heaving sobs, she got her breathing back under control. Barely.

"Obviously, ending that relationship still weighs very heavily on you, Grace. But you have to forgive yourself; it was a long time ago, and you made what you felt was the right choice at the time."

Grace mulled that over as she absently played with the tattered tissue. Her guilt-laden, unconvinced reply came out on a harsh exhale of breath.

"Yeah."

It was another long moment before she spoke again.

More distant sounds from outside. And again that pen, writing God-only-knows-what on that pad.

"Things were ok between us after that, though. I mean, it was a little awkward, but we managed to go on as good friends and colleagues."

"I think a little awkwardness would be natural, given the situation between you and this man."

"Well, it wasn't just that." Grace looked down at her hands. "A couple times, I...wasn't completely professional with him; said and did some things I shouldn't have. Catty things."

"Like what?"

Grace lifted her eyes back to the woman, then averted her eyes and shifted uncomfortably. She really didn't want to...

"I understand that this is hard for you, Grace, but please tell me." Grace took a shuddering breath, and sucked it up.

"We had just gotten a new case; woman found dead by a river. He showed up late, Lisbon teased him about it, called him 'pokey'. He said he'd forgotten to set his alarm, and then traffic was bad. I looked at him and said, 'Hey, _traffic_ got lipstick on you!', and then before we split up to do our assigned jobs, I said, 'I hope _traffic_ bought you breakfast; forensics ate all the bagels.'"

The therapist just nodded non-judgmentally.

"Why do you think you said those things?"

"At the time, I was just ribbing him, trying to embarrass him, like Cho's always doing. Cho's another of our team members. But I think I was also angry; angry at myself, angry at him for moving on, for not fighting for me, for us. I think subconsciously I was mad that he'd just accepted me breaking up with him, instead of demanding I reconsider and begging me to stay. He'd even offered to take a different job halfway across the state, but I didn't want him to resent me, so I just made a clean break to keep my job. And then I ended up resenting him."

"It was also during that investigation that Craig O'Laughlin crashed into my life. Literally _and _figuratively. We were investigating this cult, but we weren't the only ones; we were on our way back to HQ when we realized we were being followed. I pulled a wheelie with the SUV, and the other car crashed into us. He id'd himself as FBI, and then back at our office, he mentioned he knew my father. That was his 'in' with me, I guess. I don't know, maybe back then he actually _was_ interested in me for myself."

"Whether it was real or not, I fell for it, and him. That's when things with Wayne started getting weird again. And I did something I probably shouldn't have." She paused, decided to own it, and corrected herself. "Something I _shouldn't have_."

"Which was?"

"It was a few weeks later, another case, this time involving a convicted killer who'd been released on a technicality. Lisbon sent Rigsby and me up to Lodi to talk to some people involved, but...I had plans."

"'_Plans_'?"

"I had a lunch date with Craig, but I just told Wayne it was an 'appointment'. And, thoughtful man that he is, he offered to take Cho and cover for me. I wasn't thinking and accepted. Then Craig showed up, asked me if I was ready to go to lunch, and then I saw the look on Wayne's face; he knew he'd been duped. But he didn't say anything."

Grace smiled affectionately at her tricked colleague's chivalry.

"Then Craig said I'd need a sweater for the _helicopter_ _ride_. Looking back I'm pretty sure he was just bragging, not-so-subtly gloating: 'Hey, look at me, I'm a Fed, I can take my girlfriend to lunch on the company chopper!'" She scoffed. "It _had_ to be gloating; he said it right in front of Rigsby!" Her lips curled in disgust remembering that exchange, how stupid she'd been.

"But I was thrilled, excited at the idea. I just turned to Wayne and gushed, 'Thank you so much_, _I owe you one!' He just smiled, then I turned and left with Craig." She shook her head slowly, her blue eyes staring ahead unseeing.

Hindsight really was 20/20, and it hurt like hell.

"If I was Jane, no doubt I would have read his expression for what it really said: 'Yes, Grace, you _do_.' It didn't stop there. I wore gifts he gave me to the office, a necklace. Wayne was polite about them, supportive even, said O'Laughlin had good taste." Again she smiled at Rigsby's selflessness. "I knew he meant me."

Just then, the smile disappeared, and a dark shadow passed over her face.

"After that, from that point on, my whole life changed, took a turn into something dark, terrible, _evil_…and I had no clue. No idea at all how much danger I was in, in more ways than one; I was happy as a clam. It must have been around that time that Craig started to work me, trying to switch my loyalties."

"In what way?"

"I was vulnerable; I was under a microscope for letting a witness die on my watch, and the PSU threatened me using reverse psychology. He 'sympathized' with me, saying how I must be so plagued by self-doubt, wondering if I was a good cop. Then he used that to try to get me to _observe_ my team for him; there was a mole in the CBI, a traitor amongst us, and if I _was_ a good cop, I'd help him find it."

Grace couldn't hide the disgust in her voice at that last part. Even the therapist looked horrified.

"I refused. I refused to spy on my team for him. Then, at dinner, I told Craig what the PSU wanted, told him I couldn't do it, couldn't spy on my friends. And while spoon-feeding me chocolate, he shook his head, and said 'They're your _colleagues, _*I'm* your _friend_.'" She wrapped her arms around herself, and rubbed her arms, as if hit by a chill.

"Said the spider to the fly, said the serpent to Eve."

Suddenly, Grace pulled briefly out of her memories to look directly at the therapist.

"Doctor, do you know the meaning of the word 'irony'?" At the woman's nod, Grace smiled. Again, it didn't reach her eyes. "Well, my life became the definition of irony."

"A couple days later it came out that the Marshall protecting the witness...was a hired killer, and it was the young daughter who'd killed her father after years of abuse. The whole thing was a huge, ugly tangle of child- and spousal-abuse, self-defense, and police betrayal." Grace shook her head to dispel the memory.

"I was cleared, but I still refused to help the PSU. And that was the end of it. I went to lunch, and when I came back, Rigsby was there, and he congratulated me on my good news. He meant the investigation, and I realized he didn't know something else had happened. That's when I told him that Craig had asked me to marry him, and I'd said 'yes'."

Another silence. Grace thought back on the past few crazy weeks in dazed detachment, as if it hadn't been _her_ preparing to spend her life, however short it might have been, with a soulless monster.

"Grace, I know it's been hard for you to tell me all this, but it's good that you have. It's very apparent that you've needed to talk about these events, and your emotions, but were reluctant. You need to know your being here is a good thing."

Grace smiled a little at the woman's encouraging words, and this time, it reached her eyes.

"But you're not done yet; you need to finish this story." Her smile faded a fraction, but she nodded.

"So, things at CBI went back to normal; murders, paperwork, our Boss being the boss, Jane being Jane. Rigsby and I continued like before, and I started planning my wedding. Then as the weeks and months went by, the need to find the mole grew with each day, especially for Jane, because whoever it was, they worked for Red John. When Jane managed to get the short-list of suspects, Craig was on it. I couldn't believe it. I was willing to believe it was the ADA or the bureau director over him; he was my fiancé, he loved me. There had to be a mistake. It _wasn't_ him."

"To smoke the mole out, Jane set up this trap that was straight out of _Mission: Impossible_: false leads, misdirects, hidden cameras in hotels…..You would've thought it was all a game to him, but Jane never joked when it came to Red John. Then for one moment, we thought we'd solved it, but something wasn't quite right, and I had to go join Lisbon, who was guarding another of Red John's potential victims. Believing he was cleared of suspicion, I asked Craig to come with me, even introduced him to the two deputies at the gate."

By now Grace's posture had gone rigid, her blue eyes wide, haunted, and she was about three shades whiter than pale. A single new tear rolled slowly down her cheek.

"Before we got to the house, he stopped, said he needed to go back for his cell phone. When he came back, he kissed me, told me how beautiful I looked in the afternoon sun. I kissed him back. I had absolutely no idea that he was just distracting me, playing me; no idea what he'd just done."

"What had he done, Grace?" The question was so quiet she almost didn't hear it.

"He'd *_shot*_ the two deputies! In the *_head*_!" she wheezed. "Then strolled casually back up the driveway to me. Then we went into the house. Lisbon was on the phone, I assume with Jane, her back turned. Then suddenly she turned to look at Craig, and reached for her gun. Out of nowhere he pulled another gun with a silencer and shot her, and she fell. For all I knew she was dead. The minutes after that were so surreal: before I could process what he'd done to Lisbon, he'd aimed the gun at me and Hightower, the person we were guarding."

"I was almost frozen, could barely form a sentence. I said, 'What did you do, Craig?!' The look in his eyes was almost apologetic, _almost_ regretful. He said, 'Sorry about this, Grace, truly. I've grown genuinely fond of you.' He'd grown _fond_ of me! Hmph. And I knew. It _was_ him. At that moment I didn't recognize him anymore. I asked him, 'Why are you doing this_?'_ All he said was, 'It's not you, it's me'. Then before he could hurt anyone else, I shot him."

Drained, she sagged against the couch, and plucked another tissue, wiped her eyes. Blew her nose.

"The last thing he did before he died was pull another pendant he'd given me from my neck. I don't really remember what happened after that. Lisbon, she _was_ still alive, thank God, told me to call an ambulance. Other than that, I..." she trailed off. Took a deep breath, then sighed deeply.

That hint of a smile returned.

"Now, can you understand why I didn't want to talk about any of that? It doesn't exactly fill me with confidence to relive how two men in my life were able to completely blindside me. Two men with no interest in me, only _using_ me to get to someone _else_! And one reason I was with Craig...was because I couldn't be with Rigsby. I don't like to admit it, but Craig was a rebound guy. I almost died, because of stupid regulations."

"But do you understand why you needed to talk about all this? Grace, you went through something extremely traumatic, life-altering. This was not just another day at the office, even in your line of work. It's not something to shrug off and forget the next day; this is going to be with you for a very long time. But how it shapes the rest of your life _is_ up to you. You said you're now questioning your instincts, wondering if your lifelong ambition had led you to the wrong career."

"Yeah."

"You said," the therapist checked her notes, "when the PSU tried to manipulate you into helping them, you stood up for yourself, asserting that you _were_ a good cop. Do you still believe that?"

Grace heard the woman's question, and knew the answer immediately. The light came back on inside her, and shone in her eyes. She held her chin a little higher.

"Yes."

"Good. That's very good. I want you to remember that. It's completely normal to be shaken after what you experienced. In fact I'd be more worried if you _weren't_. But I believe it would be a mistake to think you'd been totally wrong about your entire career. If you can still say you believe you're a good cop, then you _are_."

Grace nodded and smiled. And it lit up her face.

"You're going to recover from this, Grace. You're going to get past this. You have a wonderful support system around you, and I know you're strong. And I also believe someday you'll meet someone as good and kind as Wayne, and his love for you won't be a ruse. You'll find him, and you two'll be able to share your lives together."

"I hope you're right."

The therapist smiled warmly. "Same time next week?"

"Same time next week."

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